Monday, March 11, 2013

Look At My This!

One of the things I've noticed about my family (extended family included) is that we tend to keep some of our "baby language" as part of our everyday speech - even when the babies have long since grown up. I've thought about a few of these family-specific vocabulary words today, and how no one else would have a clue what we were talking about if these conversations were overheard. I guess it's just part of what makes my family, my family. I think some of them are pretty cute/funny, so I've decided to share them with you :)

"Yaw" - the name my brother made up for me when he was little and still learning to talk. Not being able to say J's or L's makes it pretty hard to say "Jill," so this is what he came up with instead. He still occasionally addresses things to me with this name.

"Bouy" - when my nephew was a baby, his parents often called him "Raleigh Boy." One time, when they were visiting us, my niece kept calling him "Raleigh Bouy." It took us the longest time to figure out what she was saying, but the nickname "Bouy" kind of stuck.

"Somefing-to-frink" - this is said as one word, very quickly. My cousin used to asking for somefingtofrink when he was thirsty. Unfortnately for him, this one also took some time to decipher.

"Dinger" - this was how I pronounced "finger" the time I gleefully informed my parents that my brother had "licked his dinger!" (And yes, the fact that it sounds inappropriate is still funny today.)

"J-I-L-L-only-two-L's" - my Nana still calls me this once in a while, referring to me learning to spell my name, and using as many L's as it took for someone to tell me to stop it already.

"Look at my this!" - another one of mine. When I found something new and exciting, I loved to share it with people, even if I wasn't quite sure what it was.

"I gotta bad disease" - this one's my sister's doing. She used to sing "I'm On Fire" by Bruce Springsteen all the time - but she mis-heard one of the lyrics.

Talk at family gatherings almost always turn towards the past, and we are constantly remembering and forgetting these funny things that were said. I wonder - is this something that just my strange family does? Or does your family do it too?

2 comments:

This list was so much fun to read. I love it! We have some nick names too. One that I remember is, Maw Maw, for my grandma because my sister couldn't say grandma. We still only refer to her as Maw Maw.